The Smith Family Blog

The girls and I spent Saturday helping out at the theater with the set and with costuming for the play. The girls rolled grey and black paint on every peice of wood while I worked in the green room with the costuming. I have more projects to do at home. Three skirts to fix, a under dress to make, a papermache frying pan to make, bun covers, just to name a few. The students at the set work day were the best. Even the high school boys were super nice to Kami. offering to help her when needed. The play is shaping up nicely and I can't wait to see it. If the goofying around that was going on is any sign this will be awesome with the choreographed fight scenes and sword work. Kalaree has been blessed to get a great drama instructor. You can tell that she has a real passion for the work. Kezri had her first uncomfortable sleep over this weekend. She was asked to come over with two other girls. However, the other girls do not go to school with the party girl or Kezri and the f

Kalaree's costume is DONE!!! In fact we got it totally done by 11 P.M. last night. It is definitely a costume. It was quite the challenge. They didn't have her size int he pattern so we had to by the one down and then add inches. I had a 50% off coupon and in order to get it at 50% off you have to get it in one cut. That is hard when you need three different colors. So brilliant me, we bought YARDS of muslin and then boxes of dye. Saved me a ton of money. I worked out a time line, Sunday-fit the pattern, Monday-dye the fabric (and the sink, thank goodness for bleach), Tuesday-cut out fabric (or as much of it as a very tired Kalaree can do), Wednesday-sew the outfit (after Kalaree finished cutting it out.) We only had a few mishaps. Kalaree didn't use the layout guide and ended up short fabric for the skirt. So Tuesday night she is wanting to go buy dye to redo the fabric, which of course I told her no. Instead, her skirt ended up two inches shorter than the pattern. You rea

I have to say this week has been one of the trying weeks that occur when you raise girls. Kalaree, who says she hates girl drama, got into an argument with her best friend, which is a guy, because she wasn't getting along with his girlfriend. Then another guy friend, one she likes, asked her why she would always leave the room when the girl he likes would come sit with them. I remember those awful high school days and now I get to relive them with my daughter. So of course, being the great mom that I am I sat her down and talked about why she needs to try to get along with other girls. Which I was rewarded with, "mom, quit psyching me." Kezri, who is all about girl drama, got into an argument between her and two other girls, sides were picked, insults were thrown, tears were shed, apologies were given and hugs were had by all. But of course, this occurred all through text. What ever happened to the good old throw down in the halls of school? Kami has decided that she is g

So my latest adventure in craft is ring making. Mostly wrapped wire rings so far but I have been reading other blogs and have a few other ideas that I want to try. These were super easy to make. I made 4 of them in a matter of 30 minutes. Kezri and her friend Kelsy helped by picking the beads. Kezri's ring without the flash. Kezri's ring with the flash on. She picked one of my favorite kinds of beads, they are reflective and therefore in certain lights they look like they glow. A ring for a pay it forward. Kambrya's ring, it doesn't have a bead. She just wanted a rosette and no bead. Kelsy's ring. I will post more as I make them.

Kalaree is officially 15 1/2. Which means? Learner's permit. Yep Kalaree is going to be on the road here shortly. I figured I should warn you all. She doesn't have it yet, she still has to get one more class grade up and she is currently reading the handbook so she can take the test. Then she will get into driver's education at their next open enrollment. Last night was hilarious though. Kalaree is sitting on the couch reading the learner's manual. Every now and then she would looks up and say, "it says here...so that means when dad does...is that illegal?" Then my personal favorite, "Man, I can see why you gripe at dad's driving so much, he should read this." Now I must remind you that Kalaree's whole driving experience so far has been, starting the car for me on cold days and one trip around the camp ground two years ago, with Uncle Chad none the less. They should issue backseat driver's license with the learner's manuals.

For Christmas I got a gift card to Target. Woo Hoo for me. While at Target shopping I found this cool tool for the kitchen, it is a cupcake corer. Well my addiction to the food network has me watching Cupcake Wars all the time (Oh mom, just yesterday I saw the hard rock one and the cute girl in the pink frilly apron won, she made a pink Cadillac for her display.) Anyways, I digress, I decided I wanted to try to make cupcake with a filling using the corer that I bought since there has been all these awesome filled cupcakes on the show. Well with rotting bananas in my pantry what a better cupcake than banana cupcake with a caramel sauce filling and cream cheese frosting? I know my mouth waters just thinking about it. So I found this great recipe (from one of my other favorite sites www.allrecipes.com) and it had great reviews so it was a go. I did not forget anything in the recipe, I didn't substitute anything and I was pleasantly blessed with the batter. After filling two and half d

In the old west, towns consisted of maybe 30-40 people. Everybody knew everyone and they knew everything about them. As towns grew into cities privacy became such an easy thing to obtain. Society began to be egocentric and thought less and less of what goes on around them. Then the technological age has hit and now we know when someone is reading a book, shopping at the grocery store and heaven forbid using the restroom. At anytime during the day I can get one side of a conversation, see how much money someone spent at the grocery store and even get a glimpse into what they might be thinking by reading their facebook status, their twitter update and even a family blog filled with pictures. While it can sometimes be annoying to see all this information, I can appreciate it for what it is worth. To me it is a way to communicate with those I would not otherwise. I have never been a letter writer. I will find cards that I have written in the envelope, stamped and ready years after they sho

I have majorly failed when it has come to my blog this year. I don't know if it is I lost the desire or I just simply moved my information over to Facebook. But I realized that I do miss being able to go back and review thoughts and feelings that I have written about over the past years. So this year I am aiming to at least update once a week. It may be nothing more than this was a typical week but at least it will be documented. I figured since I failed so horribly this year that I should at least do a year in review to catch everyone up on what we have done. David is still employed with StayBridge Suites as a maintenance worker. He tired a new program through the work source that did not help him much, so he is back with DVR and he is interviewing placement agencies that work with them to hopefully find someone that can help him find work. DVR is also working on David getting the speech easy. We are hoping that it will help with his speech and therefore he would be better at arti